FTL Drive
"Second Star to the right, and straight on till morning Helmsman." ~Captain Walker on Shakedown cruise of the IHS London ---- What it is FTL stands for "Faster than Light" which, generally, is what any translight drive mimics the effects of. What separates the FTL drive from a simple Classification is that instead of shifting into a form of dimensional space, or affecting fundamental Space-time, the FTL Drive allows for Navigation at faster than the speed of light While traversing distance in realspace. Normally as a physical object approaches the Speed of light, it's affected by Time-dilation, compression and all manner of inertial forces that play havoc with things. (Modern ships that operate at speeds that would be affected by relativistic effects (primarily time dilation) usually use a TDS Device to avoid such problems as Your perception shows you've been gone for Two months, while everyone you know has witnessed 8 years progression.) And at the end of all that you still have no way to break past the Speed of light. To use an example, If one imagines the Speed of Light limitations as being akin to a Sponge, and the Ship as being a Piece of ice, the harder the ice is pressed against the sponge the sponge contracts at first but still affects a "push" of force back that increases as more and more of it is compressed, and no matter how much it's pushed against it won't actually slip through. However if one were to take the ice and melt it, it can slip through the porous material to the other side and then be re-frozen. What the FTL Drive does is essentially surround the ship in a field that causes everything within the field to be shifted out of phase with normal Spacetime. Everything within the field shifts at the same differential and thus continues to be acting as if the contents were in regular spacetime. Whereas anything outside the field is perceptible, however the higher the degrees of the phase shift the more distorted and blurry they become. Thrust and Driving force for the FTL drive is actually a byproduct of the object being in a state of phase differential with Spacetime. Due to Quantum entanglement the matter within the field "Wants" to return to the initial harmonious phase it was, Though the field makes that impossible, it still will attempt to Synch up with regular spacetime, which in essence drags or pushes it along a linear path in three dimensions relative to unphased Spacetime. The higher the degree of phase shifting, the more force of directional pull becomes. Up to a phase difference of 179 degrees. (if the phase difference reaches 180 degrees then the variation reaches a point of antiphase, and results in destructive interference where the ship is most oftentimes rendered to composite energy in a sort of matter-anti-matter annihilation effect which due to the speed the ship is traveling may be spread out over the course of light years of distance.) Physical matter caught within a certain area of the FTL field when it engages suffers severe stress damage as parts of it are taken out of phase and other points are not causing a release of energy that is quite catastrophic to most forms of space transport. During the initial milliseconds between the field forming and the ship being taken out of phase there is also released energy "wake" that can cause damage to smaller or similar sized physical objects directly in the path of the FTL ship for anywhere between 1/3 Au and 3 Au (50 Million Km and 450 Million Km). If the object happens to be much larger, like a station or planetoid then the ship itself will usually be damaged. Many modern FTL drives have a Gravitational sensor that will pick up on masses within the range and not allow the FTL to engage till those bodies are not within the interference distance. (Another reason why a lot of captains will actually move above or below the planetary plane before engaging their Translight drive.) High gravity masses (Such as planetary systems specifically suns, or Black holes as well) still exert force upon a ship traveling out of phase. There are many theories as to why, but whether it's because of the way gravity is thought to cause depressions in spacetime or because gravity itself is slightly out of phase with spacetime (And thus appears as a weaker force compared to the other 3 universal forces) the fact remains that while traveling at FTL speeds, a gravity mass of sufficient size interferes with the field (Or more accurately causes a reaction from the mass within the field which mis-aligns the field) and causes it to collapse. Thankfully Gravitic sensors within the ship itself can be used in transit to determine ahead of time if a sufficient gravitic mass is going to be within the interference area and the course can be altered or corrected, or the field can be shut down and another direction chosen. (The most basic gravidic sensors use a high-mass liquid material suspended in a field that responds to the presence of gravity fields within a certain range on the microscopic level which can be read and analyzed to determine position and distance, others are a lot more elaborate and make use of plasmic gasses or even direct gravity fields similar to those produced by a gravimetric drive.) Thus if a previously unknown mass is within the course of the ship, it can be identified as a threat and avoided. Overriding such safety features is not recommended, there are very few proposed scenarios that would account for a situation where overriding such would result in a greater chance of survival than not. Due to the abundance of high-gravity masses within a galactic system, there is a particular "safe" phase speed of degrees most spacers will use. The higher the degree of phase the faster the speed, however the faster the speed the less time is available for a change in course should the unexpected arise. Once in Extra-galactic space, the chances of interference lessen exponentially and thus ships using FTL to travel from galaxy to galaxy usually will increase the Phase variance to near the maximum amount (though just to be safe a lot will keep near the 170 Degree or 175 range Extra-galactic to avoid any power surges or unforeseen circumstances that may cause antiphase. Such trips usually will take a couple of standard Months or depending on the distance, years even at full speed, but comparatively to most other drives (Slipstream and Spacefold specifically) the transit time of even years is better than the Decades or Centuries. ---- Benefits & Drawbacks Being able to Vary one's speed of transit is a benefit, as well as maneuverability, By changing the dynamics of the field one can change course while in transit with no ill effects or a need to drop out of Translight speed and then re-orient ones self and then re-engage. For scouting missions since properly tuned sensor arrays are able to perceive the area outside of the phase field, it means that scoutships would be able to store information on system "Fly-bys" for analysis. Which can be indispensable for finding new habitable systems, cultures or scouting before an attack. As mentioned before, High gravity masses can still interfere with the operation of the FTL drive, and if the sensor array that gives warning of one in the path is malfunctioning, then it can be quite difficult. Likewise the "acceleration path" can cause damage to smaller ships or even larger ones if they are within that corridor, so not only a hazard to the craft but also others. The Drive itself is generally sturdy, however does need a specialized form of maintenance and cannot be worked on while in transit, otherwise it could throw the field out of alignment and drop the ship out of translight speeds. The drive also consumes a great deal of power at startup and slow-down, and a constant supply during operation, so unlike a transit or jump drive that only really uses power at the points of transit, whenever the field is active power must be fed into it. This can cause navigators all manner of headaches as they not only have to plot a course, but take into account relative speed and power usage to ensure the craft is able to maintain the FTL field the entire way. The last thing one needs is for the power supply to be drained when one is still a parsec away from the destination.